Dumb Q, What is straigh up from Earth, or down?

[jl0179]

If we were to send a rocket straight up from the solar plane or straight down would it hit the open space beyond the Kuiper Belt sooner then going out past the planets? I know this is probably a dumb q, but if all the planets are essentially on a level plane with each other, what happens if we send a rocket 90 degrees up or down from that plane and how long before it reaches..... anything?

 

[vogon13]

Following your intent, the star Polaris is 'straight up from earth. (within a degree)<br /><br />Please send postcard!<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[jl0179]

I didn't think I had to specify that, but lets assume that a rocket gets a gravitational boost from the earth first, a large one. You don't have to be traveling with the solar plane to get a boost from the earth do you?

 

[jl0179]

Could you get the normal gravity assist from the sun, earth and other planets and then alter your direction up or down from the plane without losing vast amounts of speed. More importantly, because this really my q, what would we find, if anything in exploring either of these courses and how far away would the nearest object of interest be, perhaps the oort cloud?

 

[SpeedFreek]

Well it all depend where you are headed really. To hit the open space beyond the Kuiper Belt you need to beat not only the Earths escape velocity, but also that of the Sun.<br /><br />Now the escape velocity for Earth is a little over 11 km/s. But from Earths orbit, to escape the gravity of the Sun you require a little over 42 km/s. The Earth orbits the Sun at 30 km/s so if you take off at, say 12 km/s in the direction the Earth is moving, you end up travelling at 42 km/s relative to the Sun! Which means you can move away from the sun rather than being dragged towards it.<br /><br />But if you take off at 12 km/s in the opposite direction to the Earths movement, you will end up travelling at only 18 km/s relative to the Sun, and thus can only head inwards without further boost.<br /><br />Taking off from the poles would put you somewhere in between those two figures!<br /><br />Now we don't tend to send probes out of the solar system directly, but we use gravitational boosts from other planets to help them gain extra speed. Sending a rocket from the poles would therefore take much longer (unless you plotted some devilish perpendicular interception orbits to get boosts from venus or mercury as you came at them from above/below, BUT - the escape velocity of the Sun is a lot higher there!) or would need the rocket to carry loads of extra propellent to reach the Kuiper Belt sooner than a rocket sent out along the solar plane, getting boosts from other planets on the way. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[jl0179]

So essentially what your all saying is it's currently pointless to try and go 90 degrees to the solar plane because of lack of velocity. <br />I'll be honest, the real reason I was wondering about this, being the huge geek that I am, I was watching Voyager and they said they couldn't go around "Borg space" because they weren't sure how big it was on either side, but I immediately thought "what about over". Space is a 3 dimensional area, why couldn't they go up, why do ppl talk about space as if they are walking down a road? Nobody ever really talks about if or how we could explore perpendicular to the solar plane I assume because we don't have the means, but if we had a "starship" could we or would we fly it in that direction as opposed to flying out of the solar system along the plane? (sorry maybe this is useless to be discussing)

 

[MeteorWayne]

However that's not straight up from the plane of the solar systen, which is also hidden in his question.<br /><br />If you go in that direction there's nothing but a few comets till you hit the Oort cloud, as far as we know (and I admit our knowledge is a bit limited, since we don't search in that direction) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

BTW, welcome to SDC, and it's NOT a dumb question!!! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Somehow I knew you'd have that answer, ce.<br />Thanx <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

But the Kuiper belt is in the plane of the solar system (more or less) so is not in the direction he's talking about traveling. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[robnissen]

<font color="yellow">So essentially what your all saying is it's currently pointless to try and go 90 degrees to the solar plane because of lack of velocity. </font><br /><br />90 degrees is tough, but Voyager 2 is currently leaving the solar system at 48 degrees.

 

[R1]

here's a picture from wiki of our extrasolar probes.<br /><br /><br />http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Outersolarsystemprobes_2006.jpg<br /> <br /><br /> I like that idea of having probes exploring perperpendicularly to the ecliptic, even if we launch<br />them on the ecliptic initially, and then changed it to 90 degrees, using the sun and the heavy planets<br />to speed it up on each vertical pass <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Fast fact: the space probe with the highest inclination heliospheric orbit is Ulysses. The plane shift was acheived by a gravity assist by Jupiter. Ulysses is in a polar orbit around the Sun so it can study the Sun's polar regions from its unique vantage point. It has recently completed a pass far over the Sun's south pole. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[ianke]

There is a cool artist's rendition of the Oort Cloud at Wikipedia under Oort Cloud. <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>